8 February 2012

Permits figure differences - Mr Mustard has some of the answer

Mr Mustard finds that in his not as yet dealt with FOI responses he had some weekly figures for permits. The visitor vouchers and annual car permit vouchers are included in one column with bay suspension income and all types of vouchers and permits but the two main strands of income are visitor vouchers and annual car permits.

It is easy to see that the reason why income is over budget in the first 2 weeks of the year is because residents were taking the final chance to buy concessionary visitor vouchers at £1 before the £4 price made them a penal rate. After that sales fall off a cliff and even the fact that 90% of residents are forced to renew their annual permit at extortionate cost does not make up for an even larger fall in the sale of visitor vouchers.

Mr Mustard feels some sympathy for the parking manager in this situation as he was never going to be able to make the budget (which will have been closely related to the previous year) once Brian's bonkers "brainwave" came into effect.

Permits & suspensions

Dates

Budget expectation

Received

Variance

Cumulative variance

1 - 9 Apr 11

£11,111

£34,895

£23,784

£23,784

10 - 16 Apr 11

£39,216

£48,446

£9,230

£33,014

17 - 23 Apr 11

£82,316

£38,866

-£43,450

-£10,436

24 - 30 Apr 11

£76,092

£17,338

-£58,754

-£69,190

1 - 7 May 11

£61,632

£18,601

-£43,031

-£112,221

8 - 14 MAY 11

£35,451

£40,885

£5,434

-£106,786

15 - 21 May 11

£61,775

£52,536

-£9,239

-£116,025

21 - 28 May 11

£47,939

£39,998

-£7,941

-£123,966

29 May-4 Jun 11

£44,323

£28,268

-£16,055

-£140,021

5 - 11 June 11

£46,296

£49,822

£3,526

-£136,495

12 - 18 June 11

£87,462

£63,115

-£24,346

-£160,842

19 - 25 June 11

£76,571

£54,846

-£21,725

-£182,567

26 Jun - 2 Jul 11

£74,628

£46,364

-£28,265

-£210,831

3 - 9 July 11

£65,334

£43,205

-£22,129

-£232,961

10 - 16 July 11

£57,504

£47,492

-£10,012

-£242,973

17- 23 July 11

£75,916

£48,062

-£27,855

-£270,827

24 - 30 July 11

£64,155

£44,273

-£19,883

-£290,710

31Jul - 6 Aug 11

£60,269

£37,532

-£22,737

-£313,447

7 - 13 Aug 11

£56,352

£48,088

-£8,264

-£321,711

14 - 20 Aug 11

£76,648

£54,860

-£21,788

-£343,499

21 - 27 Aug 11

£63,623

£39,829

-£23,794

-£367,293

28 Aug - 3 Sept 11

£62,413

£30,982

-£31,430

-£398,723

4 - 10 Sept 11

£43,442

£39,614

-£3,828

-£402,550

11 - 17 Sept 11

£62,352

£30,145

-£32,207

-£434,757

18 - 24 Sept 11

£51,916

£31,707

-£20,209

-£454,966

25 Sept - 1 Oct 11

£55,095

£52,821

-£2,274

-£457,240

2 - 8 Oct 11

£49,959

£30,936

-£19,023

-£476,263

9 - 15 Oct 11

£44,155

£40,668

-£3,487

-£479,750

16 - 22 Oct 11

£72,803

£51,137

-£21,665

-£501,416

23 - 29 Oct 11

£65,516

£42,335

-£23,181

-£524,597

30 Oct - 5 Nov 11

£61,434

£49,000

-£12,434

-£537,031

6 - 12 Nov 11

£63,499

£47,325

-£16,174

-£553,205

13 - 19 Nov 11

£62,776

£41,616

-£21,160

-£574,365

20 - 26 Nov 11

£55,455

£39,415

-£16,040

-£590,405

So the price of not standing up to Brian is a hole in the budget of £590,405

This makes his taxi bills look like small potatoes.

The role of the Chief Executive

It is the case that councillors decide on policy and officers have to execute it but as ever life isn't that simple. Nick Walkley should have seen that the excessive permit and voucher increases were going to end in tears and as part of the requirements set out in the role summary of the Chief Exec. is "Commercial acumen is also essential" he ought to have had a quiet word with Brian Coleman (is that possible?) to challenge the decisionand save embarrassment for the whole council, officers and members alike. Mr Mustard doesn't know the full career history of Nick Walkley but he does know that it involved spells in local and national government and possibly as a lecturer. If it doesn't include any spells in industry then perhaps the members chose the wrong man for the job.